Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Post E3 2006 musings

I seriously meant to post this earlier, but post show work and catching up on things I missed while at the show caused a delay.

In any case, I’m still obsessing about the Wii. Who knows when places will start taking official pre-orders for it since there is no firm date or price. My gut feeling is that it will come out in October for $249. If it’s $299, I’m thinking the console will come with a pack-in game and maybe an extra controller. How rad would that be?

I didn’t have time to go play more Wii at the show, but I did manage to try out some other exciting games and a bunch that weren’t so great (I mercifully did not list any of those for now):

Ghouls & Ghost PSP – So cool and really hard. This one is going to rock.

NBA 2K7 Xbox 360 – Everything the last game should have been. Next generation looks and improved play. Fantastic.

Elite Beat Agents DS – The US version of Ouendan is pretty much a brand new game. The two scenarios available for play on the show floor had me smiling, laughing, and even getting a little emotional.

Warhawk PS3 – The tilt function works well and it’s so nice to revisit the world of Warhawk again.

Once I got home, I started downloading Xbox Live trailers and demos like a madman. Being able to view the DOAX 2 trailer in HD and surround sound is awesome. The Lost Planet demo was pretty rockin too. There were too many trailers that didn’t show much gameplay and not nearly enough demos. In the end, I think it’s a great idea that wasn’t executed as well as it could have. I’m sure it’ll be a growing trend since every new console has online/hard drive support.

There were plenty of items I totally missed at the show. I was glad to hear the SCEJ horror game Rule of Rose for PS2 got picked up for domestic release.

Holiday BudgetThe post show buzz is starting to wear off and soon it’ll be decision time regarding what consoles and games to budget for this year.

Wii – The console is a must purchase. I don’t usually buy many games at launch, but the Wii may break me down.

Xbox 360 – E3 has made me quite happy to be a 360 owner. Lots of good games coming down the pipe. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if the HD-DVD attachment is reasonably priced ($100-180ish), this combo could be enough to keep me away from the PS3 and Blu-ray for at least a year or perhaps much longer.

PlayStation 3 – The MGS4 trailer was super cool as was Final Fantasy XIII, and I’m psyched for Virtua Fighter 5, but most everything else I saw was a let down. At this point, I’m heavily leaning on skipping the PS3 launch. Blasphemy!

PlayStation 2 – Aside from the Wii, the PS2 was a big surprise to me. There seems to be a ton of games I want for it. Yakuza, Rogue Galaxy, Valkyrie Profile 2, Rule of Rose, God of War II, Final Fantasy XII, Guitar Hero II, Okami, and Karaoke Revolution American Idol. That’s just the stuff I remember.

PSP – There wasn’t much to get me excited aside from Ghouls and Metal Slug anthology, but I know there will be enough games this year to keep my PSP fed. The PSP Media Manager actually keeps me quite happy with the other functions of the handheld. It just needs larger and cheaper memory options.

DS – Got my US DS-Lite pre-ordered so I’m set. Amazingly, I have more DS games than PSP, Xbox 360, and GameCube games combined (I have quite a number of Xbox and PS2 game however). That number is going to get larger still as the year will see some awesome games starting with New Super Mario Bros. DS wins.

Oh, bonus pic! It's good old John Ricciardi who now lives and works in Japan. Check out his thoughts on games here.

3 comments:

My plan all along had been to avoid the Xbox 360 and hold out for the PS3 -- and then i saw the stuff microsoft and Sony had at the show, and I did a 180. Picked up a 360, DOA4, and Perfect Dark Zero this very evening, I did. I'm getting a Wii no matter frickin' what, of course. Oh, and i want a Wii version of Okami. heck, even a DS version would be cool. Make that happen.